There are a lot of ideas floating around about the best way to help Baby adjust to sleeping in their own bedroom, but they are not the only one who’s making a big adjustment – you’re learning how to sleep with Baby away from you for the first time in their life, too. While Baby is the one of the two of you who’s more likely to be loud about their disappointment, even if the move was definitely what you wanted, there’s a good chance you’ll go through an adjustment period as well.
Here are some suggestions for ways to be kind to yourself if you end up taking Baby’s move into their own space a little bit harder than you meant to.
Keep your ears open
Baby monitors might be marketed towards children a little bit older than Baby is now, but when it comes right down to it, age is just a number, and even if your little one is a toddler now, they are still a pretty small number. Keeping a baby monitor in Baby’s room will give you the peace of mind of being able to hear for yourself that nothing is going wrong, even if they are not right beside you anymore.
Take a walk
Even if Baby is the lightest of sleepers, you can probably get away with tiptoeing over to take a peek at them now and then, just to make sure they are sleeping soundly. It can feel like taking a step backwards, checking in on Baby when you’ve already made the big step to move them into their own room, but if it helps you feel better about making that step, it’s the right thing to do.
Enjoy?
There’s nothing wrong with being able to appreciate a little space from Baby. They may dominate your emotional horizons a bit, these days, but that just means that having a few minutes to enjoy the other things in your life, without the sound of them tossing and turning in a crib in the corner, can be all the more important. Enjoying taking a step back from Baby in the evenings is nothing to feel guilty about, and could even make you a happier parent.
